Theatre review: Police Cops - The Original and BADASS Be Thy Name

Although there's no sign of The Musical making a return any time soon, the three original, lo-fi comedy shows from Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe aka Police Cops continue to resurface every so often. I've previously caught Police Cops in Space, and now marking their 10th anniversary as a comedy troupe, the three shows have all been playing in rotation. This includes a London residency at Soho Theatre (the one that's actually in Soho,) where I caught the two I hadn't seen before. First up The Original, which was the story they later adapted into The Musical: A 1980s-set American cop show parody in which Hunt's rookie Jimmy Johnson teams up with Roe's grizzled old cop Harrison to take down Parkinson's Fernandez, a Mexican criminal who's sometimes Police Chief Molloy. And also sometimes a cat.

Then their 2019 show BADASS Be Thy Name, a tribute to the 1990s Madchester dance scene, in which Roe's Tommy wants to ditch his dead-end job to put on a bucket hat and take drugs at the Hacienda, but instead ends up becoming a trainee vampire slayer to Parkinson's Father Badass (His drink of choice? Bourbon. His biscuit of choice? Bourbon.) They have to foil a plan by the vampires to bring the actual Devil (Hunt) to Earth at the turn of the Millenium, when he intends to eat all the sweets.

As usual there's little point trying to actually nail down what works about the team's chaotic mix of scripted and improvised comedy - The Original was tonight plagued by mishaps, most but not all caused by Roe's faulty microphone, but since so much of it involves ad-libs and the cast trying to make each other corpse the mistakes hardly detracted from anything. As for BADASS, highlights include the cast's constant references to incredibly specific '90s TV moments, the Devil's big musical number about sweets, the way Roe and Parkinson make Hunt's head explode, and an action figure-based chase sequence. There's not quite the partial nudity from Roe that I would normally expect, but there is the character of Mr Bum-Bum Man, who speaks out of Hunt's arse cheeks, and which in an intimate space is the kind of view people normally charge extra for on Onlyfans. Obviously this is recommended wherever they pop up next; I've now completed the set but given how much of it is constantly rejigged or outright made up on the spot I wouldn't rule out return visits to any of their shows when they inevitably come back to London.

Police Cops - The Original and BADASS Be Thy Name by Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe continue to tour and are available to stream.

Running time: 50 mins straight through / 1 hour straight through.